A Flame In The Dark
by halconera
Summary: Katniss Everdeen was supposed to be in love with Peeta Mellark, at least for the show. And have nothing to do with the others, especially not the brutal tribute from District 2. But when an unpredictable turn of events forces her to team up with Cato, the two of them start wondering if they might be more alike than they first thought.
1. Training

Katniss tried to calm her pounding heart, but it was difficult. For the first time she was face-to-face with the other tributes in the gymnasium. The ridiculous costumes were gone, and they were dressed in training gear. The show was over, and the real business was beginning.

Snippets of advice flashed through her mind in Haymitch's voice, often slurred: _Don't appear weak. But don't go drawing attention to yourself, either; that'll just make the Careers mark you as their first target. Try to lie low._

The instructor was echoing that last warning right now. "Don't fight with the other tributes," she said with a slight, probably rehearsed, laugh. "There'll be plenty of time for that in the arena."

Katniss glanced over to her right and found herself meeting the eyes of the brutal tribute from District 2. Cato. As their gazes locked, one corner of his mouth lifted in a cruel smile. She turned away quickly, her heart thudding. She hadn't liked the look in his eyes. She had seen the strength in those arms during training, how the thick ropes of muscle had flexed as he hurled spear after spear at the dummies, lopped off their heads as easily as a farmer scything wheat.

And if she had read his expression correctly, he had just marked her as his prey.

She didn't relax any futher, either, as the training continued. The other tributes displayed a range of fighting skills that differed based on their age, size, and the wealth of their districts, but most of them looked like jokes next to the Careers. Katniss saw Clove of District 2 hurl knives at the dummies with inhuman speed and accuracy. She saw the blonde tribute from District 1 nock arrows to her bow and hit the center of the bulls-eye every. Single. Time. She saw the huge black District 11 tribute hurl a huge metal weight ten feet across the floor of the gym.

Katniss had only to look down at her own scrawny arms to become even further convinced that her bow and arrows were her only chance of staying alive. She wouldn't last five seconds in hand-to-hand combat against Clove or any of those gladiators.

She thought of the mockingjay pin, but instead of some supernatural good-luck charm it now seemed small and insignificant, just a brittle piece of metal. A hundredth of the weight of one of the swords Marvel was handling right now. Her own hands looked so delicate to her, her bow flimsy. One slice of that sword and her weapon would be useless. Of course, that same slice would probably take off her head, so in that case she wouldn't even be needing a weapon anymore.

The hours spun by quickly—too quickly. Before she knew it, Katniss was waiting to perform her evaluation. Her hands were still raw from sparring with the trainers. She swallowed down a rusty taste—she had bitten her tongue earlier and now she kept feeling like her mouth was filling up with blood.

"They say the Careers don't get any special treatment," she remarked to Peeta. "How convenient that the first few districts get to be the first ones called. By the time we get in there, the Gamemakers are ready to drop dead of too much food and wine."

Peeta shrugged, looking, as always, reluctant to get angry. "Then we've got to make sure they remember us."

"Easier said than done." She had a vision of herself stringing the arrow backwards or some other ludicrous mistake. The Gamemakers would laugh so hard they'd fall off their cushy chairs. Maybe she would win sponsors simply through providing comic relief.

After an almost intolerable wait, one that seemed too long and yet far too short at the same time, her name was called. She stood up, remembering how many times her name had been called in the last few days. She was growing used to it. Or maybe just to the thought of her impending…_no, don't think that._

They barely glanced her way as she entered the room, most still engaged in conversation and picking at the remnants of food on the tables. "Katniss Everdeen," she called, as she was supposed to. That got their attention for a few seconds; she'd have to make sure they counted.

The bow felt too big, too heavy, wrong in her hands. She strung an arrow to it and aimed. Before she even released it, she knew it would go wide. Laughter pricked her ears. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick. The only thought she could conceive of was _I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up._

Mechanically she picked up another arrow and let it go. This time she hit the target dead center. She smiled to herself and glanced up at the Gamemakers, sure they would be at least somewhat impressed.

But no one had been watching. They had returned to their chatter. She stared up at them in disbelief. Now they were arguing over who had ordered a roast pig.

The apple in its mouth was as red as the target. The target she had hit dead-on without receiving even a flicker of recognition.

_Let's try this again,_ she thought, and let her third arrow fly.

"Your foolishness is simply _unbelievable_," Effie hissed. She hadn't paused in her barrage of disapproved and angry remarks since Katniss had entered the room. Katniss just stared at the screen. The Careers were racking up high scores, that was for sure. Marvel got a 9. So did Glimmer. Both tributes from District 2 got 10s. Katniss found herself staring at Cato's image when his score was announced. She got the uncomfortable feeling he was looking directly at _her,_ even though she knew the footage had been taken hours ago. Her stomach dropped.

Finally her score was announced. An _eleven?_

_No,_ she thought. _There must be a mistake._ But there wasn't. She felt an elated grin spreading across her face. Effie yelped with joy. "I knew it!" She leapt to her feet and hugged Cinna, who literally swept her off her feet and twirled her around. Even Peeta looked happy for her. _Well, of course,_ she thought. _He is supposed to be in love with me, after all._ But she had a feeling that the joy and relief in his eyes wasn't just acting.

She didn't know how this made her feel, exactly.

A/N: so this was just the first chapter, but there will be actual Cato/Katniss interaction in the next chapter, that is if you want it! ;) review please!


	2. Trapped

The night after the evaluation was the night before the games began, and all through dinner Haymitch had drilled her on survival tactics. Katniss had barely paused in stuffing herself with roast duck and vegetable stew—for all she knew, this might be the last time she'd get to taste food again—as he poured glass after glass of rum and hurled advice at her. The kitchen had prepared a flambéed dessert, which they brought out just as Haymitch warned her not to build a fire. He'd started laughing through his hiccups and eventually collapsed face-first into his sweet potato pie. She supposed she should feel sorry for him. His drinking had only gotten worse as the clock ticked down to the beginning of the games.

Nerves, after all.

She hurried down the corridor, almost tripping on her long skirt—one advantage to getting into the arena would be getting out of these clusmy, dysfunctional clothes—walking fast, as the last thing she wanted was to run into any of the other tributes. Haymitch had warned her they might try to intimidate her before tomorrow, and she wanted to avoid them and get to sleep as soon as possible.

But apparently that wasn't going to happen.

"Hey," a voice barked out. "Fire Girl."

She knew who it was before she even spun around. Cato was striding towards her from around the corner. She fought the instinct to back away, even though her heart was hammering in her chest. He looked pretty threatening, but he couldn't do anything to her now, before the games even began. Could he?

"What do you want?" she demanded. She half expected the other Careers to burst out from behind the corner after him, but evidently he was alone.

"I saw your score. What did you do?" His eyes were narrowed. He actually sees me as a threat, she realized. She hadn't forgotten that look from the first day of training.

"That's between me and the Gamekeepers." She managed to keep her voice steady even though she felt she might start shaking, now that she was only a few feet away from him. Involuntarily she took a step backwards. She could smell his scent—nothing she could name, just a not entirely unpleasant aura of maleness. She could sense the strength in his muscles.

"I wouldn't play it coy if I were you," Cato said, his voice low and threatening. She took another step backwards and bumped against the wall. How had she gotten so far down the corridor? He followed her, stopping only a few inches from her body, and rested a hand against the wall next to her head.

"I don't think the Gamemakers would take too kindly to your trying to intimidate the competition before you even enter the arena," she said, but found that it was hard to sound confident with the killing machine from District 2 glaring into her eyes, his jaw clenched.

Standing this close, Cato could see something in her eyes—something firey, something that snapped like the flames that had surrounded her chariot. He had caught a glimpse of that same fire before, too, the first day before training, the first time he had really looked at her. And then he had looked again. Because if there was one thing Cato knew, it was how to scope out the real competition. And to underestimate this Fire Girl would be to make a huge mistake. Even before that maddening score of 11, he'd had a feeling that there was more to her than met the eye.

And it was infuriating. He found himself wishing the two of them were in the arena, right now, just so he could put out that maddening fire in her eyes.

This was looking like it would be an interesting kill.

"If you did show up tomorrow with a couple of black eyes and a limp…who would prove it was me?" Cato raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Would they really take your word for it? Come on, Katniss, think. Their prized tribute from District 2 against a scrawny Seam rat. Which one will they think is more trustworthy? It doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to figure that one out."

"Good, because otherwise you might have been struggling with it for several hours," she snapped back at him.

His other hand hit the wall next to her head. "You really want to _struggle_ with me, Fire Girl?"

Katniss caught her breath. She was intensely aware of his closeness, of how his muscles bulged, barely hidden beneath his dress shirt, his body trapping her like a cage

Then, much to her relief, he backed away from her, seeming to recover his temper. He said in a low voice, "I can promise you one thing, Seam rat. You won't need to look for me in the arena. I'll be looking for you."

_Yeah, gotta make sure you get your beauty sleep,_ was what she thought, but didn't quite dare to say. At least not until he had disappeared down the hall, and only then in a very quiet whisper.

Peeta found her on the roof. Katniss listened to him talk about how the Capitol shouldn't be able to control them, how he wished he could find a way to show them that they didn't own him. She watched him silently, remembering her conversation with Gale several days—several lifetimes—ago. About how they could run away into the forest together. Madness, of course. But she wished she had Gale with her now.

No she didn't. That was a terrible thought. Because one of them would have to die. That was what would happen.

"I just can't afford to think that way," she said when Peeta was finished. The lights of the Capitol glimmered—what a ridiculous name—against the velvety stretch of blackness. She imagined the streets lit up by huge televised screens, blank now, but which would tomorrow be showing every second of the tributes' struggle to stay alive.

Already she found herself running through survival strategies in her head, much of them based on what Haymitch had taught her. Climb a tree, don't waste arrows, and whatever you do, don't make a fire. The thing was, she was certain Haymitch had won his round of the Hunger Games through more than raw survival skills. He had to have had charisma, cleverness, something that would have won him sponsors. Because no one from the Outer Districts survived for very long without sponsors. Their gifts were precious, and might do a tiny bit to close the gap between them and the Careers who had been well-fed and trained every day of their lives.

Katniss pictured the streets filled with yelling, violently dressed crowds, cheering on their favorites, mocking those who appeared weak. Her stomach turned. Please don't let me be one of those. This whole love story would only get her so far. If she ran across Thresh, or Cato, or Clove, she was as good as dead. Or Glimmer, she reminded herself. Or Marvel.

_Stop being such a coward,_ she thought. Peeta's mother's words came to her then, and though she had never met the woman, she could imagine her clipped, disappointed tone: District 12 might finally have a winner. Instead of making her feel confident, though, it seemed to hollow out her stomach. Because it reminded her of her own mother. And of how she hadn't said anything when Katniss had left.

"I'd better get to bed," she said eventually. "We have a long day tomorrow."

As she went back inside, she just barely heard his muttered reply: "Either that or a very short one."

A/N: If you liked it (or didn't) please review! I do love feedback :)


	3. Arena

_This is it._ Cato stood on his platform, poised to sprint forwards. Most of the other tributes looked sick with fear; only a few, like Clove, had that frenzied light of anticipation in their eyes. He recalled how she would get that same expression on her face before a no-holds-barred training session back at the academy.

He would take down as many as possible at this bloodbath, in his customary way: swiftly and efficiently. He knew the audience was honing in on him, the most brutal and ruthless of all the tributes, eager to see if he would live up to his reputation.

_You can bet your asses I will,_ he thought.

The gong sounded, a high-pitched note that seemed to drill directly into his skull, and the circle of tributes broke. Cato lunged forwards to snap the neck of a boy who stumbled into his path, and seized a sword from the ground, using it to slash another tribute's chest open. Blood spattered across his face. He moved through the pack of tributes, cutting a girl's legs out from under her and, as she fell, taking off her head with the backswing of the same stroke. This was almost laughably easy.

Something broke into his focus, a yelp that he recognized from years of training, and he turned to see Clove's face lit up with concentration as she hurled knives at the Fire Girl, who was running full speed towards the forest.

He tensed—he had promised himself that _he_ would be the one to kill her, and he disliked how relieved he was when Clove gave up the chase and circled back, scowling. It didn't matter. He would look for her later. So far she hadn't shown much evidence of living up to her score by turning tail and fleeing; the audience might be beginning to doubt her abilities, but Cato knew better. She must have some tricks hidden up her sleeve. That bow and arrow, combined with stealth and silence, could prove deadly.

Barely in time he heard the footsteps behind him; he spun around on instinct, beheading the tall black-haired tribute with a slash of his sword. _Fuck,_ he thought as he stared down at the bloody corpse, _that was close._ Too close for Cato.

In the next few minutes, each thrust of a spear, every swing of his sword, decreased some of Cato's tension, eased the tight feeling in his chest. Made the roaring in his head diminish a little. He knew this feeling well, had often experienced it during training; during his adolescence, when others would have no choice but to wallow in their stress, he had found an escape in the academy. He would revel in the sensation of a weapon in his hand, a way to feel—just for a few hours—that he was all-powerful. And this was more like training than he had ever expected. He was barely aware of the fact that these bodies had been breathing and fighting, instead of dummies.

_And what's the difference?_ he thought vaguely, stabbing a girl in the heart. She crumpled, dead before she even hit the ground. They were the same once they had been struck by the sword, or the spear, or the arrow-just dead sacks of meat instead of plastic. Brutus had told him this with a cold, knowing smile on his face. _Train long enough and it all becomes the same,_ he had said. _You won't be able to tell the difference anymore. _Cato was beginning to realize how true this was.

He only stopped when there were no more living tributes around him, just crumpled heaps of bodies and blood staining the grass. In the space of a few minutes all of them except the Careers were dead or had fled into the trees. Well, all but the Careers, and Peeta—just as they had planned. Clove and Marvel had wanted to kill him, but Cato had other plans…ones that involved the boy's fellow tribute from District 12. He immediately took charge, being the one male who didn't try to cajole others into doing his bidding...or stare longingly at Glimmer when he thought she wasn't paying attention. How idiotic. The fact that the two of them were from the same district meant nothing. One of them would likely end up killing the other in the end.

And then he found his thoughts moving to Lover Boy and what he had said in his interview about his district partner. Cato wasn't stupid. Just a few minutes ago, he had asked the boy what her name was for the sole purpose of gauging his feelings for her. He had seen the flush crawl across his face, heard his tone shift slightly when he'd said, "Katniss." It was clear that he really had fallen for the Girl on Fire.

_Mistake._ Cato couldn't fight back a smirk. That sort of thing just made you weak. There was no place for emotions in the arena. Doubtless he was trying to come up with some clever plan to turn on the Careers once they'd picked off enough of the competition for him. Well, he wouldn't get the chance. He didn't know it yet, but he would lead them to the Girl on Fire, and then he would watch as Cato killed her.

"What're you smirking about?" Clove came up beside him, hauling two packs of gear. They were moving into the forest now. Time to do some more hunting—their plan was to pick off as many tributes as possible before nightfall, before they had a chance to receive aid from sponsors or try to take the Careers by surprise.

"Just my kill count." Without even bothering to count, he knew he'd gotten a higher number than her. Something he had always enjoyed during training. "What'd you get again? Eight?"

"Nine." But she didn't look happy about it. She probably knew he'd gotten more than she had. "That District 7 kid put up more of a fight than I was expecting."

"Wish I'd been there to help?" he asked. "Sorry I can't hold your hand all the time, Clove. Some of us have bigger problems to deal with."

She didn't even bother to come up with a snappy retort. "Don't worry. I'll get her." She seemed to be thinking about something distant, staring into the trees around them.

"She's mine," Cato said harshly.

Clove glanced sideways at him. Was it just him, or had her eyebrows risen? "Marked her as yours, have you?"

His eyes narrowed. If only.

"Upset she topped your score?" She shrugged. "Whatever, you're welcome to your revenge fantasies. I don't care who kills her, as long as she suffers. Though I think we both know I'm better at that than you are, Cato. You and your hacking and slashing. But some of us know how to take our time…how to have fun." A smile slowly crawled across her face, and he looked away, not liking the image of Clove crouched over the girl, carving her up into little bitty pieces. He enjoyed the kill as much as Clove did, just in a different way—and in truth, he had marked Katniss as his, in a way. In his mind. That night in the corridor when he had seen the fire in her eyes and promised himself that he would be the one to put it out.

"We'll set up camp here," he ordered the group, as much for a way to end the conversation with Clove as anything else. They set their supplies down. "You," he warned Peeta, "one of us will always be watching you. And given that you don't stand a chance against one of us, let alone all four, you'd better watch yourself. Got it?"

The boy had scored an 8. So he might have a chance against one of them, actually, especially if he caught Glimmer off guard. But Cato wasn't going to give Peeta any sense of overconfidence if he could help it. He needed him to find her.

Darkness fell before they could find any other tributes, but Cato kept an eye out—there was always someone stupid enough to start a fire. Sure enough, only half an hour or so after nightfall, Marvel pointed out an orange flickering deep in the trees. Cato grinned and hefted his sword. Clove darted out into the darkness, and he followed, hearing the others' footsteps pounding behind him.

The hunt was on.

* * *

The District 12 girl's face was not among those projected onto the sky that night. Cato let out a breath he hadn't even realized he had been holding. The sooner this was ended, the better. He wasn't ready to go through this ordeal for days and days. He needed to find her as soon as possible, and answer his hands' itching to wrap around her throat.

He remembered how she had looked, pinned up against the wall that last day before the Games began. His eyes had flickered down and he had caught a glimpse of the skin right beneath the edge of her shirt, just below where her throat dipped in above her collarbone, had seen how the olive tone faded to a paler shade. That one intimate detail seemed to open up a door into her own private world. The vulnerability hinted at in that one glimpse of white, untanned skin.

He needed that...

(_her)_

...he needed...

_No._

He would drive his sword through her heart.

Glimmer smiled at him from across the fire, but Cato barely noticed. If gaining sympathy from the audience required that he feign affection for this vapid girl, he wasn't sure it was worth the effort. She was admittedly attractive, with long legs, a slender waist and hair that looked surprisingly shiny and neat given that she had just spent most of the day running through the forest. The kind of girl he would fuck back in District 2 and then never speak to again. But when he looked in her eyes he didn't really see anything there. Even acting as though he was emotionally attached to someone felt alien to Cato, and he didn't see how he could act convincingly enough so that viewers were fooled into believing that the monster from District 2 had a heart after all.

As the moment she was letting her gaze linger on his sword. "I've never seen such a big weapon before," she said slyly. Cato only just restrained himself from snorting. The girl's mentor should have given her some acting tips, rather than just letting her go ahead and pile on the innuendo.

The next day, when Marvel suggested they hunt in the east part of the forest, Cato elected to stay behind and guard the camp. "You stay too, Twelve," he told Peeta. The boy shot him a slightly puzzled look but apparently knew enough not to protest.

"You sure?" Clove asked, frowning. Cato never wanted to stay behind. Even during their training in the academy he had always been first at the exercises, first in the line for sparring pairs. As they had grown older his bloodlust had seemed to grow, too, his anger requiring more and more kills to ease it.

"Yes," he said roughly. As soon as the others' footsteps had faded into the thick green forest, he turned to Peeta. In one lunge he had him pinned up against a tree, unsheathed sword pressed against his throat. Lover Boy's eyes popped open wide, terror etched plainly on his face. _Shitty reflexes, bread boy,_ he thought. In the academy he would have gotten punished severely for that.

"Where is she?" Cato snarled. When there was no immediate response, he tilted the blade slightly so that it drew just a bit of blood. "Talk, unless you want me to loosen your vocal cords for you."

"Who?" was the stammered response.

"You know who. Your girlfriend."

"I don't—"

"She doesn't know you're with us, does she?"

He didn't need an answer. As soon as Clove had gone after her, the girl had hightailed it out of the bloodbath without a backward glance. Unless she had somehow since been tracking them through the forest, she had no idea that her district partner had joined—or pretended to join—the Careers.

"You may not know where she is now," he said. "I'll buy that. But if she's got any sense at all, she'll be looking for you. Got to keep up appearances, after all. Stick to the storyline." _She doesn't love you back,_ he thought; he had doubts she ever could love a boy like this, a boy who looked like he would be more likely to quail under her steel-gray gaze than to match it. But he knew it would be a strange thing to say aloud.

"You'll take us to her," he continued, seeing Peeta's face grow several shades paler. He let a smile crawl across his face, the same chilling smile that had always made his opponents start trembling before they even met him in the ring. "I'm not an idiot, Lover Boy. I know how you feel about the Fire Girl. I've known what you've been up to ever since you agreed to join us. I haven't been keeping you around just because of your score."

He could see Peeta's adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard. His eyes were darting back and forth across Cato's face. He was looking even more terrified since Cato had mentioned his district partner. _Idiot,_ he thought. The very least he could do for himself was try to conceal the emotion that had gotten him into this shit in the first place. Then again, he probably had no idea how. He hadn't had the discipline Cato had received in regulating his feelings. Very few people had.

"No arguments," he continued. "No fuss. No trying to pull any valiant escape stunts. Or you die very, very slowly. I can promise you that." He let the edge of the blade dig in just a little further to prove his point. "You don't mess with the Careers." There. A line that would display his pride for his district, his district that was more than a mess of half-starved miners and beggars. Brutus would be nodding right now and Enobaria's mouth would be curling in a smile, as their prized tribute upheld their district's honor.

"Why?" Peeta managed to choke out. "Why her?"

There was no reason not to tell the truth. "Because, pastry boy, I've had my eye on her since that first day of training. And I always get what I want."

**A/N: So...if you have any constructive feedback I'd really like to hear it since I think I may be doing something wrong, because not many people review even though they click on it :/ So please tell me how I could improve this?**


	4. Second Night

Katniss crept slowly across the ground, the pain in her leg sending tremors through her body. Find water, find water, was the current overwhelming urge in her brain. One of the Capitol's explosions—_why are they doing this to me now, at the very beginning of the Games, it's senseless, so senseless_—had scorched a good portion of her thigh, and right now her instincts were taking over, forcing their way through the fog of agony that was blocking her thoughts. Water. She needed water to clean her wound and help prevent infection.

She finally located a stream and rolled into it, the icy water driving knives into her thigh. For a moment the pain was so bad she thought she might black out. Slowly she managed to open her eyes and splash water over the wound, grimacing and gritting her teeth so hard she heard her jaw cracking.

"Katniss?" someone called. She twisted around to see Peeta standing a few feet away from her. She half-rose from the water, but hesitated, realizing how terrified he looked. Now he was mouthing something at her, and then he screamed it. "RUN!"

She splashed to her feet, stumbling backwards, frightened by the depth of terror in his eyes—

And then they appeared. The Careers, Cato in the lead, their faces twisted with flee. Bursting out of the bushes directly behind Peeta, affording him no time to run or even turn around.

She barely took in the swing of Cato's arm—lazily, almost an afterthought—before she turned and ran for her life. She scrambled up the first tree she knew she could climb. The bark scratched her hands and her breath hitched in her throat. Her leg felt like it was on fire, pain radiating out from it and filling every inch of her body. Behind her she could hear the excited yells of the Careers chasing after her; their voices intermingled like a barking pack of dogs, urging each other on. Complete animals. Sweat trickled into her eyes, obscuring her vision, making her blink furiously. Before she had hauled herself even twenty feet off the ground they burst into the clearing.

"Where are you going, Girl on Fire?" Glimmer shouted. Cato's taunting voice rose above the others; to Katniss's ears, he seemed the most excited out of all of them that they had found her.

_Well, he would be, the bloodthirsty beast._ Katniss scrambled up further, throwing her leg over a solid-looking branch. "I'm coming for you!" the District 2 tribute shouted. She looked down to see him clawing his way up the trunk after her. The others were cheering him on, their eyes hot with bloodlust, chanting "Go! Go! Get her, Cato!" In a blur she realized that though Peeta was nowhere to be seen, she hadn't heard the cannon go off—so he must still be alive, back there, somewhere.

Not for the first time, Katniss wished she had a bow and arrow with her. Maybe Cato wouldn't be such a good climber with an arrow through his eye. But her arms were trembling so hard she doubted that she would've been able to shoot anyway.

She wasn't too scared, though. His muscles may have helped him in close combat but they were a burden to him here—compared to Katniss, whose light weight allowed her to scramble up the tree like a squirrel. She glanced down again and knew what was going to happen before it did, as he seized a slender-looking branch. Too slender. It snapped, sending him tumbling down thirty feet to land with a _THUD_ on his back.

"I'll do it myself," Glimmer snarled, and took aim with her bow, but her hands were shaking with anger, and Katniss easily evaded the arrow.

"Maybe you should throw the sword," she called, trying to keep her tone light and mocking, though she could hear it beginning to tremble. The others looked disgusted, but Cato just kept glaring up at her with fury in his eyes. The intensity of his rage scared her to look at, even though she knew, for the moment at least, she was safe. It was like a beast was looking out through a human's eyes. He really was the kind of tribute the Capitol longed for—absolutely ruthless. A monster.

She heard him ordering somebody to make a fire, and that was the last thing she heard before she made the mistake of letting her hand brush her leg. Pain filled the world again, blocking her senses, the agony building to such a crescendo that she retched. She forced her eyes open—_don't look weak, don't you dare look weak._ The wound in her leg throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

* * *

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Glimmer volunteered, unsheathing a knife as long as her forearm. "I thought I saw the District 8 girl during our chase." She hadn't had much luck at the bloodbath, and Cato knew she needed to up her kill count in order to seem like she was living up to her score. She disappeared into the forest and Clove looked after her. "Is it just me, or is she limping?"

"It's not just you." Cato had noticed how her stride was slightly uneven in an attempt to take weight off her right ankle. She must have landed wrong during one of her leaps over the rocks in their pursuit.

"Not that I'd need that to tip the odds." Her mouth curled in a smile as she spoke.

He regarded her, with her petite stature and dark hair and glittering black eyes. He thought of the fact that crept up in his mind more and more often leading up to the start of the Games. If it came down to just the two of them, he would have to kill her—quickly, with no show of remorse or hesitation. He didn't like looking ahead to it, but he knew he could do it. All that was needed was to block off any emotions of weakness or pity that might rear their ugly heads.

And then…victory. In all his imaginings, though, he could never actually picture what would happen after the final kill. He knew the process, of course, from having watched all of the Hunger Games over and over until he practically had them memorized. There would be the amplified announcement of the victor. A Capitol hovercraft coming down to collect them. And then, finally, the crowning ceremony. Glory. Honor. But though he was familiar with what would happen, Cato's fantasies always seemed to burn themselves out before he could sit in the throne, feel the weight of the victor's crown on his head. They ended just after he performed the final kill. Somehow he was never able to reach beyond that.

He realized Clove was staring at him, and he had the feeling that she was thinking the same about him. Planning for when it was just the two of them left in the arena. He held her gaze for a few more seconds until she smiled at him.

The cannon boomed, and Cato knew what had happened before Glimmer even charged into the clearing again, her face lit up with victory. "Got her." Cato had been hoping the two would finish each other off. No such luck.

"Nice work." He tried to ignore the way she fluttered her eyelashes at his praise. How pathetic. The girl wasn't a bad fighter, but right now she looked like an idiot. He smiled at her and tried to look as if he enjoyed the way she was throwing herself at him. If only she were looking up at him right now with eyes that were gray rather than green, if her hair was slightly darker, that might make it easier…

_Fuck. Easier to kill her, maybe._

"Shame we couldn't get _her_," Marvel said in an undertone, scowling up at where the District 12 Girl was still perched in the tree. Cato reluctantly followed his gaze, still all too aware of the thoughts that had just been invading his consciousness. She was hunched over, and it was impossible to tell whether she was trying to figure out what was going on on the ground, or even whether her eyes were open. "Too bad we can't light the tree on fire and see if she really is as comfortable in that element as she was trying to make out." His wide mouth stretched in a leer.

"Except that would be a terrible fucking idea, you idiot, because we'd all be scorched," Cato said, rounding on him. "Maybe you want to be remembered as the Boy on Fire, but I sure as hell don't."

"I wasn't _actually_ suggesting we do it—" Marvel began petulantly, then broke off, his expression quickly souring. Back in the academy in District 1, he had always been used to giving orders, and he didn't like how this guy suddenly thought it was okay to talk to him like this. But then again, he had seen the way Cato had killed a man with a twist of his arm, and decided it was better not to argue.

"We'll wait her out," Cato decided. "She's got to come down sooner or later. Maybe she'll just fall down in her sleep."

"Maybe she'll fall right on top of you—you'd love that," Clove muttered.

He turned to her sharply. "What was that?"

"Oh, nothing." But she was smirking. Damn her. She knew him too well.

Less than an hour later, night had fallen and a fire was crackling in the clearing. There had been no further sounds or movements from Katniss, who had remained motionless in the same position since climbing up the tree.

Clove sharpened one of her knives on a flat rock she had found. Arguably it was sharp enough to kill anyone with a single swipe, but the sharper, the better. Maybe she would _actually_ have a chance to have some fun with the other tributes. The sheer number of tributes at the Bloodbath had forced her kills so far to be quick and efficient. But things quickly changed in the arena, as she was beginning to realize. She hadn't had to ask why Cato had wanted to stay behind with the boy from District 12, or what he had said to him. From the moment she'd walked back into the clearing with the others, his triumphant mood—and the other boy's palpable fear—had made it very clear. Even before he had announced to the other Careers that the Seam rat was going to lead them straight to his District partner, Clove had known something was up.

What an idiot Lover Boy had been to think he could trick the Careers. Play double agent. _Didn't work out quite the way you'd planned, did it,_ she thought to herself, smirking. She scraped the blade of the knife across the rock, trying to hone it to the thickness of an atom, a molecule.

She glanced over at Cato, noticed how his gaze hadn't shifted from the girl in the tree, how his eyes were narrowed in the light of the flames. He was staring at her with an intensity that Clove had seen only a few times before—right before the gong had sounded before the Bloodbath. And when they had all been shown the film of the 73rd annual Hunger Games. It was a look of total, all-consuming want.

"Feeling all right, Cato?" she asked in mock concern.

"Fine," he snapped, not looking at her.

Clove's smirk only grew wider. She knew what he was thinking as he looked up at the girl. She hadn't shared the room next to his for four years without learning some things. From the sounds she had picked up on, quite a number of his trysts with girls tended to have some elements of the arena in them. Several times, it had almost sounded like the last few minutes of one of the Hunger Games was going on in there. Apparently, after so many years of training, he had gotten some of the critical lines…_blurred_.

An interesting thought entered her mind: maybe, when the time came, he would forget whether he wanted to kill the Girl on Fire or fuck her.

Clove shrugged to herself and continued sharpening her knife. She didn't mind if he did the latter first, as long as she didn't have to be around to see it.

**A/N: R&R?**


	5. Rue

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews! **

Katniss had just been beginning to nod off when the first face appeared on the sky. She snapped back to wakefulness as soon as the progression began, making note of which ones had died, of which districts were now left tributeless. There were far fewer than there had been the first night. Well, of course there would be a spike at the Bloodbath, and then the curve would drop sharply as tributes concentrated on finding food, water and supplies, before hunting down their opponents one by one.

She tried to distract herself by trying to see how bad her wound was, but she didn't even need the flickering light of the fire to tell that it was serious. This would slow her down enormously. Maybe even be her death warrant. She saw no way of getting out of this tree while the Careers were down there, and she couldn't eat bark. And there was the more urgent problem of water.

And the pain.

Then, as if in answer to all her prayers, a small pack descended in front of her. With trembling fingers she opened the note. Haymitch. Of course. _Stay alive._ Never before had such a simple task seemed so impossible. She crumpled up the note and unscrewed the top to the medicine.

Damn, this was going to hurt…

The next morning Katniss awoke to a rustle in the branches. Just slight enough to rouse her out of an uneasy sleep. She looked around and caught sight of a pair of eyes peering out of the tree next to hers. Slowly she processed what—no, who—was there. It was the tribute from District 11. Rue. Who was, at the moment, pointing at something above Katniss. She looked up, forgetting to suspect a trick.

A tracker jacker nest was hanging there.

She stilled her breathing instinctively, memories of warnings about these muttations coming to her mind: _Deadly strings. Hallucinations that drive their victims to madness._ Even more than the vague idea of death in the arena, Katniss dreaded the thought of agonizing pain, insanity that would reduce her to a raving, gibbering mess that would be projected on screens across Panem.

She looked back at Rue, who was making back-and-forth motions in the air. She frowned in puzzlement before she realized what the girl was trying to convey.

Was it possible? It was risky, sure. The wasps might realize what was going on and converge on her before she could saw all the way through the branch. But if she didn't, she could look forward to what she would get as the morning spun on: re-energized, rejuvenated Careers at the bottom of the tree…Careers who were looking forward to seeing her again, no doubt. The memory of Cato glaring up at her from the ground, the rage burning in his eyes, drove her to action. The thought of him getting close enough to—hurt her—made her palms sweat as she climbed slowly up the tree to the nest. The pain in her leg was still there, but muffled. The Capitol's medicine had done its job. She wondered distantly whether the cameras had zoomed in on the nest earlier, leading the audience to wonder frantically whether she would find it or not. They were probably on the edges of their seats right now.

She was aware of Rue darting away through the branches of her tree—and neighboring ones. She made barely more noise than a squirrel.

Before putting the blade to the branch, Katniss took a moment to gather her thoughts. _This is for you, Prim,_ she thought. She pictured her sister's face, lit up, when she arrived back home as the lone victor. She imagined the celebration, the tearful reunion with her mother and Madge and all the other people she had left at home. People who had been rooting for her all along. Who were rooting for her right now.

Then, gritting her teeth against the pain in her hands, she began to saw the knife back and forth.

* * *

Fear.

Cato hated feeling fear.

At several earlier points he had been stupid enough to think it might finally have been beaten out of him; he hadn't felt afraid when standing on the plate waiting for the gong to go off, for instance. Or when he had volunteered for the Games back in his District. All he had felt was exhilaration. Invulnerability.

But the wasps had a way of finding that dark wellspring of terror that lived in everyone's brain, no matter how well they had suppressed it.

For several hours Cato floated in a thick, suffocating blackness interspersed with nightmarish scenarios: him kneeling over Clove, hearing her scream as he ended her life. Being terribly wounded in the Games but not allowed the mercy of death, just left to bleed on the ground in agony for the audience's amusement. Being hunted by grotesque, twisted muttations, things he couldn't name or even describe.

And things that were real, too. His father screaming at him that he would never be good enough. Throwing a punch at that same man five years later and sending him to the hospital with a broken nose and cheekbone. Lunging forward in a training session against his brother and shoving him hard enough to break his arm—and then being praised for it, though he was shaking so hard he could barely stand.

Killing a schoolmate in a training session. They said it had been an accident, but Cato knew better. He had said…things…to him before the fight, and when it was their turn to battle, Cato been angry enough to kill. And that was what had happened.

He pushed the memories away.

Hours later, after the pain and hallucinations had faded enough for him to think clearly, Cato would ask himself how he could have been so stupid.

He had underestimated her. _Again_. He should have known she'd find a way to escape from the trap they'd created for her.

He vowed never to let her distract him again.

Thanks to her they had lost Glimmer. At least it would be a relief not to have to evade her constant flirtation. But he had tripped and almost fallen, only staying on his feet thanks to Clove, who had managed to seize his arm mid-run and keep all near-two-hundred pounds of him from falling. He wouldn't have been able to get up again, either, not when the wasps descended on him. He would have died like Glimmer. An agonizing, horrible way to die.

_All right, Fire Girl,_ he thought. _We can do this your way._

* * *

It was a relief for Katniss to be on solid ground again instead of balancing precariously on a tree branch. The sounds of the forest hummed around her, lush green leaves seeming more like protection than a cage now that she wasn't stuck like a cat up a tree anymore.

Katniss tore some more strips off the leg of squirrel with her teeth; she knew it would do very little to fill the gaping void in her stomach, but she had never been more grateful for fresh meat. The small, dark-skinned girl from District 11 sat next to her, eating her own meal with slightly more grace.

Rue reminded her of her own sister, Prim. They had the same smile, for starters. With the same mischievousness. And, she realized with a pang, the same innocence. The same instinct to see the good in people. Even here in the dark heart of the Hunger Games.

"_They've_ got enough food to last them weeks," Rue remarked. "The Careers, I mean." Her small nose wrinkled in distaste.

"They have?"

"Oh yeah. They've got mounds of supplies, stockpiled over at the Cornucopia. There's a net over it and everything. And one of them's always there to guard it."

"Perfect. As if they didn't have enough of an advantage already."

Katniss and Rue slept on the branches of a sturdy tree, sheltered by the thickness of the leaves and their height from the ground. Katniss could see the little girl's eyes glowing in the darkness, from the branch underneath hers, long after the first stars appeared. _I guess she can't sleep either._

"Do you like him?" Rue whispered.

"Who?" _Peeta,_ of course. Peeta. But Katniss didn't want to admit to herself that the first male she had thought of had not been Peeta. It had been a boy who was blond, true…but stronger, and taller. And instead of bread he smelled like blood.

She didn't like him. That was laughable. Liked the thought of killing him, maybe.

"That boy who said he loved you." She could see Rue's smile. Just barely. For a second her heart ached for Prim.

"He's…well…" She hoped the audience would mistake her awkwardness for a lovesick blush. "…Mmm." Katniss let her mouth curve up in a mysterious smile. Let the Capitol drool over that one.

"He is handsome," Rue admitted. "You're so lucky."

Katniss's smile wobbled, just a little.

"I mean, well…" Rue seemed to realize her mistake too. Not so lucky if one of them would end up having to kill the other in the end. Or watch them die. "To have someone who cares, at least."

Katniss remembered how no one had volunteered when Rue had been reaped. How the only sound had been the wind whistling through the abandoned buildings around District 11's square. She didn't know exactly what to say, how to put words to the emotions in her right now. So she just let her hand fall and a second later a smaller one reached up and held it. The two of them stayed like that for a few minutes, and Katniss had to swallow back the tears that were threatening to spill over. She couldn't allow herself to look overly emotional. She had already displayed what some viewers would term foolishness or weakness by teaming up with the little girl.

She fought away the images that were threatening to flood her brain—Rue dying, or worse, the two of them being the last ones left. Her killing Rue. Her killing Peeta. The scenarios flashed before her eyes, and when she closed them she got no relief. She tried to escape into sleep, but the dreams were thick and heavy, seeming more real than the Games themselves. Her mind reeked of death and confusion when she was asleep, and waking the next day brought relief.

The next day there was no food except the last pickings of the squirrel. Katniss cracked open a bone and sucked the rich, bloody marrow out of it. Images of the Careers' food came to her then, floating before her eyes tantalizingly: hunks of bread, cheeses, strips of dried meat, apples glistening like stars.

"If only we could find a way to even the odds somewhat. The Games would be on our terms then. We'd all be equal." She could almost hear the audience holding their breath as they digested this new twist in the plot. Good.

"I like that." Rue's dark eyes sparkled. "What do you have in mind?"

"I…have no idea," she admitted. "You say it's well guarded?"

"Mm-hmm. There've probably got some sort of booby trap system set up around it, too. I wouldn't put anything past them."

If it was indeed so heavily guarded, there was little to no chance of stealing food unless they were able to take out all of the Careers, and she seriously doubted the likelihood of that. No, the best strategy was to even out the playing field a little. Katniss had an image of the entire pile going up in flames. Burning to blackened ashes, ruined supplies that were of no use to anyone. The Girl Who Was On Fire could become the Girl Who Set Things On Fire…if she was able to bypass whatever sort of trap they had set up, which she was sure they did. Like Rue, she knew better than to underestimate her enemies.

Then Rue turned to her and asked something completely unexpected. "Katniss," she said, smiling a little, "can you sing?"

"Kind of. Why?"

"Listen." She sang four clear notes in an even melody. A few seconds later it echoed back from the trees above them

"Mockingjays," Katniss whispered. "Perfect."

It looked like they were beginning to have a plan.

* * *

That night, Katniss almost missed the projections of the faces onto the sky. But she raised her head in time to catch them. There were far fewer than the first night. Well, of course there would be a spike at the Bloodbath, and then the curve would drop sharply as tributes concentrated on finding food, water and supplies, before hunting down their opponents one by one.

But all her thoughts froze as Peeta's face lit up the night.

Her last memory of him was of him trying to warn her to run away. She hadn't really considered the implications of his strange position; why had he just stood there, knowing the Careers were coming? Had they caught him and wounded him enough that he had died today? Had he really died trying to protect her? He could have run. He didn't have to stand there and have his heart stabbed out through his back by the brute who had just been staring up at her for the past five minutes with murder, or hatred, or something else bloody and violent, in his eyes. It was quite possible that another tribute had gotten him, not necessarily any of the Careers...but she couldn't get the images out of her mind: of Clove slicing him with her knives, of Cato going after him with his sword. And if that was the case, if Peeta had only died today he must have suffered for hours.

She turned her face away, burying it in the crook of her arm so the cameras couldn't see her expression. And bit back tears.

For what seemed like the thousandth time.

A/N: **R&R? :)**


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